I have had some official complaints that it has been sooo long since I updated. I know. But to say life has been wild the last 5 months would not do it justice. So here we go. I may do several short posts, just to get things going.
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/In January we signed the kids up for a swimming class. It was more like a get acquainted with the water class. Their reactions were exactly as we expected. Brinlee was all about it. She just loved it. She splashed and played and had a ball. Sawyer was very timid at first, but warmed up to it within about 20 minutes. Caisen had a great time. He splashed and kicked and did all the right things. Kimball was terrified. He couldn’t climb high enough on our bodies to get far enough away from the water (each of the kids was held by one of us the whole time. Adam, Liz, Bekah and I were there every week). He was trying to get up on our heads like a little turban. After two classes of being a life vest, he calmed down and enjoyed the class. By the end of the six weeks, he was even jumping off the sides to us. One weekend Gran and Granddad came and did the class with us. We had a great time!
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/Our righteous little children have learned to pray. At first, one of the adults would take a turn each night saying the prayer. Then the kids started repeating it as we prayed. Then the kids started wanting a turn. We would help each of them say a short prayer. In early March, Kimball says, “Kimball turn! I do myself. Dear. Heavenly. Father. Thank you. Blessing. Please. Bless. Us. In. The. Name of. JESUS! CHRIST!!! AMEN!!!!!!!!!” And he is jumping and screaming and bouncing around in his bed like a monkey in a cage because he is so tickled by what he’s done. It was so cute. After that, Brinlee and Sawyer wanted to do it themselves. Of course, mommy and daddy have to have a turn too. Many nights there are 6 prayers before bed. Not only that, but we each have to say a prayer at nap time too. We get lots of practice. We might be the holiest house in the neighborhood.
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/Which brings us to the Holy Wars. Sawyer has discovered his super power is verbal warfare. If Kimball says black, Sawyer says white, which sends Kimball over the edge insisting, “WHITE! WHITE!” while Sawyer calmly replies, “Black, Black.” It could be anything. Kimball might say, “The light is on.” (which it is), and Sawyer will say, “The light is off.” (which it isn’t). And Kimball is screaming about the light being on while Sawyer calmly states that it’s off. His favorite way to do it is to start saying a prayer any time Kimball starts saying a prayer. Kimball can’t just continue and finish, he starts screaming that it’s his turn. So he starts over and so does Sawyer. It doesn’t matter if Sawyer has already had a turn. He’s just doing it to drive Kimball crazy, which it does. So how do we handle Sawyer? Tell him to stop praying? We’re still working on that one.
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/And Brinlee’s prayers have become epically long. She prays so quietly and for so long that we’ll think she’s finished, so one of us will start, and she starts over even louder, “DEAR HEAVENLY FATHER…”
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/It’s funny and disturbing to hear kids repeat you. If Kimball is getting frustrated trying to put a block in a bottle, Sawyer will say, “Honey it’s too big.” Or if someone is upset, Brinlee will say, “It’s ok. It’s ok.” They are listening to everything we say.
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/Sawyer loves to play the opposite game. If he hears Kimball say he wants more vegetables (yes, my children say that), Sawyer will say, “Kimball said no more vegetables.” with a perfectly straight face. If Brinlee asks for a purple cup, Sawyer will say she asked for a green cup. It’s more of that verbal warfare, and it’s hard for his siblings not to get sucked in, which is pretty much the point. You can just see the thrill of power on his face. The word he is currently experimenting with is “behind.” Everything is behind. “It’s BEHIND you!” We are trying to teach him some other prepositions, like under, in, on, along, among….
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/One of their favorite games is to stand at the top of the ramp of their little roller coaster (I’ll post a picture of it soon), say a prayer, scream, “I love you guys!” and run to the bottom.
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/Caisen has been talking for a while. His first word was, “Uh-oh,” which is what we say to the kids when they are in trouble. That doesn’t speak well of his siblings’ behavior, does it? He says light, octagon, bottle, dinner, boo, ball, book, box, blue, purple, socks, shoes, daddy, phone, all done, apple, banana, bread, water, I see you, and his number one word, “Huzzat?” That’s toddler for, “What’s that?”
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/And speaking of uh-oh, Caisen had his first uh-oh experience in March. He had a bad TV turning off habit. After a few times in uh-oh, he crawled up, turned off the TV and started crying because he knew he would go to time out. It was sad and funny. Later that week he climbed up in front of the TV, ran his finger over it, turned around and looked at me, ran his finger over it, turned around and looked at me, one more time feeling the button and looking at me. Finally, he got down and crawled away. After we conquered his TV problem, we moved on to curbing his food and cup throwing problem. He was quickly cured.
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/Finally! A tooth! Caisen got a tooth! Like his siblings before him, he is a late teether. He got his first tooth at 11 months, like Kimball and Sawyer. He’s cut three top teeth and two bottom teeth. That second bottom tooth was been cutting forever. It looked like it was through the gum. You could see it, and it was so raised you would think it’s through, but there was a layer of gum over it. He has the world’s stretchiest gums. He does a great job eating table food, considering he just got a tooth two months ago. He never liked baby food and would rarely let us feed it to him. Caisen wouldn’t even accept the easier to eat substitutes that we give the toothless in this house. He insists on eating what everyone else is eating, and objects loudly when he doesn’t get it. So we give it to him, and he gums it like a master. He’s been feeding himself and drinking from a straw cup since 9 months. He also uses a bowl and plate, which we didn’t start his siblings on until they were around two. I think a lot of it has to do with his desire to be like his brothers and sister. Caisen was born wanting to be part of the group.
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/We’ve shown Caisen the same letters video that taught his siblings the alphabet a few times, and the other day he looked right at me and said, “A. B. C. D.” He will point to letters and name a few of them. C is his favorite (and rightly so). We let the kids pick out what color dishes they want each meal, and they always start with, “Um….” as they contemplate their choices. For a while the favorite color was purple. They all fought over purple. Now it’s blue for the boys. Just for fun, last week we asked Caisen what color plate he wanted, and he said, “Um, blue!” Now he’ll also ask for purple. Tonight we asked him if he wanted milk or water, (fully expecting him to say, “Um, blue!”), and he said water! He is talking up a storm. And he’s climbing. He likes to climb up on this coffee table or the kid chairs and then cry because he can’t get down. It’s hard not to laugh at him, and he doesn’t appreciate it.
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/Caisen feeds himself spaghetti for the first time and confirms that we’ve been withholding the good stuff all along.
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/Our children have developed the habit of referring to themselves in the third person. “Brinlee is hungry.” “Kimball wants a blue bowl.” “Sawyer is climbing up.” That’s our fault. There are a lot of “you”s living in our house, so we rarely use pronouns. We wanted to make sure they know who we are talking to. Slowly they are starting to use the occasional “I” or “me”.
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/Kimball loves to make it clear when he has taken control of his destiny. When we offer him a choice, and he says no, he will repeatedly tell you that, “Kimball said no. Kimball said no.” I was gone during lunch one day, and when I came home, I asked them how their lunch was. Kimball said, “Kimball say no pot pie.” He loves to tell me when one of the others said no. “Beenee say no shoes.” Got it. I heard her say it. But thanks for clarifying. He loves to open and close things, screw lids on and take them off. His new favorite game is to make a train out of anything he can connect and push it around. He’s one creative kid.
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/Somewhere our children learned the phrase, “Not too tight!” Everything is too tight, especially their car seat straps, even if you could put a soccer ball between them and the straps, it’s still too tight. So we pretend to loosen them, and they are happy.
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/Some of their favorite entertainment is making mommy sing Primary songs. They love the popcorn song, I Am a Child of God, I’m So Glad When Daddy Comes Home, Once There Was a Snowman, Do as I’m Doing and other kiddy songs like Wheels on the Bus. They know all the words and love to sing them. Brinlee, Kimball and Sawyer love nursery at church. They love to play, sing, do the craft, eat the snack, hear the lesson, and they absolutely love Sharon, the nursery leader.
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/Brinlee is becoming more independent. When we ask her what color plate or bowl she wants, she’ll usually say pink or purple. If the boys then ask for the same color, she’ll change her color so hers is different. She’s also starting to like more of the girly stuff. She’ll wear anything if you tell her it makes her look pretty. I stopped putting bows in her hair because she’d pull them out and pull them apart. Last Sunday I told her how pretty her bow looked in her hair, and any time it came loose, she brought it to me to fix. Problem solved! She now loves the baby doll that she punched and threw across the room when we gave it to her two Christmases ago. Her name is Pink Baby. She is in Brinlee’s bed every night, and often carried around (by the neck) during the day. Sometimes she requires diaper changes and food (mostly blocks or paper).
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/Brinlee is still our most discriminating eater. We’ve figured out she has a mandatory 6 month waiting period before trying any new foods. She seems destined for a government job. The princess has developed what you might call a possessive streak. She will choose an item (usually the best one) out of a group of toys and claim it as hers. She has done this with the dinosaurs, the cozy coupes, everything.
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/Sometimes I feel like I live in a book because everything I do is narrated by my children. If I drop or spill something, I hear, “Mommy dropped it. Mommy made a mess. Mommy dropped it. Mommy needs to clean it up.” Over and over and over. Yes, I know there is milk all over the floor. Thank you for bringing it to my attention. Over and over and over. In stereo.
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/Gran and Granddad came to visit and introduced the children to the miracle of watching corn pop. Granddad is the popcorn master.
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/Granddad also fixed their chairs, and they were so excited they wanted to eat their snacks while sitting in them.
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/I was meant to be an only grandchild! (Sorry honey, you’re number 14 out of 15 1/2)
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/We thought 3 Cozy Coupes would be enough for a while, but we were wrong. Caisen kept hijacking other drivers, so we had to get him one too.
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/Having lunch at the picnic table.
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/This is what you call a cry for daddy’s attention. One night the kids insisted on swapping pajamas. The boys are wearing Brinlee’s, and she is wearing theirs. Daddy was at work, so he saw the surprise when he got them up in the morning.
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/Kimball figured out that Brinlee’s skirt is easier to put on than pants. Honey, the skirt and leggings look is so last summer.
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/This is the first thing Caisen climbed on. He liked to go on fishing expeditions for toys that had fallen behind the table.
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/Caisen climbs on anything he can.
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/This coffee table is actually the first thing he climbed up on. He likes to turn the lights on, but not off. And he doesn’t appreciate it if you turn them off either.
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/A few weekends ago gran came to visit and we took the kids to a farmer’s market. There was an antique fire engine there, and the fire fighter let the kids climb up.
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/The play area next to the market had this cute train slide. Our kids love trains.
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/Sawyer driving the train.
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/Can I offer you a ride somewhere?
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/I know you want to give me another chocolate chip muffin. I wear it so well!
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/Caisen got in the jumpy for the first time and loved it.
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/My friend, Kim (she’s the extra gorgeous one in the blue dress),was on What Not to Wear, and this was at her big reveal. Keira and MaryBeth are also triplet moms. The four of us are in the same local triplet group, and our kids were all born within a few months of each other. This was my first time meeting Keira and MaryBeth in person. Love those girls!
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/Caisen’s first time down the slide.
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/The three cutest brothers ever!
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/Two weekends ago when gran came to visit, we went to the Greek festival. After lunch it started pouring, and while everyone else ran for cover, our kids decided to dance in the rain. Then they started going in circles and chanting like they were picketing.
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/Building a tower before church.
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/Playing while she waits to get her hair done. She’s not into magazines yet, so this will do until it’s her turn in the chair.
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